Chief Executive's Report

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Chief Executive's Report SEPA 18/12 Agency Board Meeting 29 May 2012 Board Report Number: SEPA 18/12 Chief Executive’s Report Summary: This paper highlights areas of environmental achievement and concern, enforcement action, and major partnership activities, as well as business related issues in respect of corporate performance and activity, since the Board meeting on 17 April 2012. Risks: N/A Financial N/A Implications: Staffing N/A Implications: Environmental and N/A Carbon Impact: Purpose of the For information report: Report Author: James Curran, Chief Executive Karen Cochrane, Executive Officer Appendices: None 1 SEPA 18/12 Chief Executive’s Report INTRODUCTION In these recent days of economic and meteorological gloom it’s always useful to have an injection of youthful enthusiasm – and that was certainly generously supplied by a schools event held by the SEWeb project partners. Seventeen S2 students from Stirling High School had been set the task of helping to answer the question ‘what could SEWeb do to help young people enjoy, understand, protect and improve Scotland’s environment?’ Space Unlimited, a charitable enterprise, were contracted to facilitate the work; they were specifically chosen because they work with young people in a collaborative way to help them take ownership and leadership of a challenge, building skills and confidence. After setting the original question to be answered, the SEWeb partners stepped back and the young people, under the guidance of Space Unlimited, organised themselves, decided what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. A drop-in session was held on 16 May at SEPA’s Bremner House office in Stirling to showcase the results of the young peoples’ work. Their ideas, honest criticisms, suggestions and sheer confidence and enthusiasm were inspirational, and they, in turn, were very positive about their experience and felt that they had made contributions that were genuinely being listened to. The next steps to take this forward are to secure commitment from SEWeb partners to help make the ideas suggested by young people happen, and that they themselves are involved in this process. But there’s been lots more to be enthusiastic about since my last report. For example, I was invited by the Chief Executive of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) to attend the annual SWA Members Day in Edinburgh, and to address a popular breakout session on the subject of Better Environmental Regulation (BER). I was ably supported by Andy Rosie, our Head of Operations North and sector lead for SWA, and the discussions on how to develop the BER model were fascinating. The whole morning was enjoyable and provided an excellent opportunity to meet face to face with many SWA members, and get a real insight into their industry and thoughts on how our organisations can continue to strengthen an already good working relationship. The SWA environmental strategy is an exemplar of an industry sector striving to be a champion and going beyond regulation. Unfortunately I had to leave before any of the hospitality on offer. As David mentioned, our work on Better Environmental Regulation is moving swiftly forward. Calum MacDonald and his team are continuing to drive this initiative internally, and a seminar session to update Board members on progress is planned for the morning of 29 May. The whole Agency Management Team (AMT) joined in a creative day-long workshop with Scottish Government colleagues looking at possible sustainable funding models for the Agency – simplifying from the current 14 charging schemes and providing much better flexibility in deployment of our resources. The good news is that there was strong consensus on many important issues. At any one time we often view particular events through a prism and, at the moment, that prism for me continues to be Team Scotland and the associated delivery of multiple benefits. So when Graeme Dickson, Director-General Enterprise, Environment & Digital, on behalf of Scottish Government Ministers, invited me to join the Scottish Government Emissions Reduction Programme Board, as an external representative to provide an independent perspective on the challenges faced by the Board, I was keen to hold an internal SEPA workshop on climate change mitigation. A short-list of 18 opportunities was created, and foremost was perhaps the preservation and restoration of Scotland’s iconic peatlands and heather moorlands. These act as huge sinks and stores of carbon but also host biodiversity, attract visitors from around the world, and retain water to reduce flooding and erosion. 2 SEPA 18/12 Multiple benefits by the bucketful. In terms of Team Scotland, and as David noted in his report, we have jointly met with various bodies since the last Board meeting in April, including, for example, NFUS and Edinburgh University. With Calum Macdonald, I met with senior managers of Scottish Power and learnt a lot about the complexity of their decisions on future investment. A meeting with Ordnance Survey reviewed joint efforts to create new products of benefit to all Scotland, and a meeting between ourselves, SNH and Marine Scotland consolidated joint approaches on planning and compliance. We also hosted an RS awareness event in Parliament and the EU Environment policy event in Dynamic Earth – specifically to create a Scotland-wide response to the European Commission. In addition, I met Russell Hampton, Director of BTCV. He is as enthusiastic about Citizen Science as we are; the issue is finding the initial joint resource to get the momentum going. Agency Management Team (AMT) AMT was pleased to host a visit by the Permanent Secretary, Sir Peter Housden, who came to Stirling on 23 April and spent more than 2 hours with us, talking about what he felt are the key challenges facing the public sector in Scotland, and we took the opportunity of updating him on the work of our change programmes. He also discussed the role of public sector Boards and we discussed the interactive induction session which we were all involved in at Riccarton in April. He seemed really interested in this and we have agreed to let him know when we arrange the next session, with a view to having him or some of his DGs join us - I’ll keep you posted. Our Deputy Chairman, Bob Downes, also joined the AMT in setting out some early thoughts and challenges as we begin to develop an approach to encourage new ways of working throughout the Agency. Much more will follow on this! 1. THE ENVIRONMENT 1.1 Ecology Rapid Assessment Technique (RAT) Following successful development work and a pilot network in 2011, a new river invertebrate RAT is now “live” for 2012. This technique will allow approximately 500 samples to be taken by Ecology in 2012. The method, which involves rapid analysis in the field, has been fully calibrated against the more time consuming laboratory- based classification and allows us to highlight rapidly where there may be potential issues, or, indeed, improvements. It also gives us the opportunity to assess the condition of many smaller water bodies which we would not otherwise visit. Diverting our resources from the intensive laboratory work into this network means we are far more flexible in our approach and can better target known issues and potential problems, and also uncover previously unrecognised problems. Ecology staff are continuing to develop rapid assessment techniques for other biological elements which will enable us to detect an even wider range of impacts. 3 SEPA 18/12 River Invertebrate Classification Tool (RICT) SEPA now supports the web site which delivers all RICT classifications for the Water Framework Directive1. The service is provided to all UK environment agencies and other users world-wide. 1.2 Flood Risk Management Floodline award The Drum Marketing Awards reward and celebrate the UK’s most effective marketing strategies. The results were announced at an annual awards ceremony which took place in May 2012 in London. The Floodline launch campaign won the New Product/Service Launch Strategy of the Year Award with the entry submitted through our creative production partner Origin, who had worked alongside us in tandem with another supplier partner, Allied Publicity Services. Rather than focus on the negatives of flooding, Origin’s creative development focused on the positive aspects of being prepared and taking preventative action. To drive users to web registration, a multi-channel approach was implemented, using direct mail, online media and press coverage to ensure that this message really hit home. This multi-faceted campaign resulted in 11,000 people registering by the end of July, exceeding the September target of 8,000. Pilot catchments Discussions are ongoing with the Scottish Government regarding a programme of pilot projects to explore the potential mutual benefits of joint river restoration and flood management projects, as well as providing increased support for water framework directive restoration and diffuse pollution work. A steering group has been set up to oversee implementation and includes representation from Land, River Basin Management Planning (RBMP), Flood Risk Management Planning Units, Environmental Quality and Scottish Government representation. The group is currently focussing on catchment selection criteria and further updates will be provided at key stages. 1.3 Radioactive substances Dounreay Low Level Waste Facility The draft Radioactive Substances Act (RSA) Authorisation and accompanying decision document have been peer reviewed internally and will be amended to reflect the review comments, as appropriate, prior to release for consultation. Given that this is not a licensed nuclear site, but will be operated by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) and receive waste from the decommissioning of the Dounreay licensed site, the scope of the consultation remains to be defined by the project board. In particular, the length of the consultation period and the scope of the consultees to be formally invited to comment need to be agreed.
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